Diane of the Green Van eBook

Ann returned from her visit to the Indian camp scintillant
with italics and enthusiasm.

“My dear,” she said, “I’m
wild about her—­quite wild!
. . . I’m going again and again!
. . . If I knew half as much and were
half as lovely—­ Why, do you know,
Diane, she set me right about some ridiculous quotation,
and I never try to get them straight, for half
the time I find my own way so much more expressive.
. . . There’s Philip Poynter with a tennis
racquet again! Diane, I’m losing patience
with him.”

From her madcap craving for new sensation, Ann was
destined to evolve an inspiration which with customary
energy and Diane’s interested connivance she
swept through to fruition, unaware that Fate marched,
leering, at her heels.

CHAPTER XXIX

THE BLACK PALMER

Curious things may happen when masked men hold revel
under a moonlit sky.

Thus in a tropical garden of palm and fountain, of
dark, shifting shadows and a thousand softly luminous
Chinese lanterns swaying in a breeze of spice, a Bedouin
talked to an ancient Greek.

“He is here?” asked the Bedouin with an
accent slightly foreign.

“Yes,” said the Greek. “He
is here and immensely relieved, I take it, to be rid
of the jurisdiction of the hay-camp.”

“I fancied he would not dare—­”

“A man in love,” commented the Greek dryly,
“dares much for the sake of his lady.
One may conceivably lack discretion without forfeiting
his claim to courage.”

“The disguise of his stained and shaven face,”
hinted the Bedouin grimly, “has made him over-confident.
Having tested it with apparent success upon you—­”

“Even so. But he has forgotten that few
men have such striking eyes.”

“If he has taken the pains to assure himself
of my whereabouts,” rumbled the Bedouin, “as
he surely has, I am of course still blistering in
extreme southern Florida, hunting tarpon. I have
a permanent Washington address which I have taken
pains to notify of my interest in tarpon and to which
he writes. These incognito days,” added
the Bedouin with a slight smile, “my cipher
communications cross an ocean and return immediately
by trusted hands to America, though I, of course,
know nothing of it. Those from my charming minstrel
to me—­make similar tours.”

“And I?”

“You—­my secretary—­having
spent a few days with the Sherrills on your way to
join me after months of frivoling with a hay-camp,
have been forced by telegram to depart before the
fete de nuit to which Miss Sherrill begged
our attendance. Rest assured he knows that too.
Therefore, to unmask unobtrusively and slip away to
his room, and in the absence of other guests to linger
for a week of incognito quiet—­voila!
he is quite safe though imprudent!”

Greek and Bedouin fell silent, watching the laughing
pageant in the garden.